Herhold: Twenty-six seconds to disaster on the Caltrain tracks

Share this:

Lawrence Goldblatt, the former dean of the Indiana University School of Dentistry, survived a train-car collision that took the life of his wife, Judith, on April 15, 2011, in Palo Alto

Judith Goldblatt, right, poses with U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indiana in this undated courtesy photo. Goldblatt, 65, of Indianapolis, Ind., was killed when her rental car was struck by a Caltrain in Palo Alto on Friday, April 15, 2011. Courtesy photo.

Of all the fatal collisions I’ve covered, none haunts me more than the accident on the Caltrain tracks in Palo Alto that took the life of Judith Goldblatt.

The blotter version would go this way: At 5 p.m. on Friday, April 15, a Caltrain locomotive traveling at 79 mph hits an eastbound Nissan Altima, stalled for unknown reasons on the track at Charleston Road and Alma Street. Husband escapes. Wife is killed.

The haunting part lasts 26 seconds. Twenty-six seconds between the moment the bells start ringing to the time the train arrives.

A half-minute to decide. A half-minute to impact. A half-minute you’d like back to redeem the life of the Indianapolis woman driving the car.

Like Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie “Source Code,” I crave those seconds to pull her from the car, push it off the tracks, scream for help. Anything.

On Alma, one car back from the intersection in the southbound lanes, Robert Monroe watched it unfold. He says the Nissan just sat there. At the last moment, the husband jumped out and the locomotive struck the right rear side of the car.

“I guess I’m a little ticked off at myself,” Monroe told me. “Why wasn’t I on the horn honking at her? Why wasn’t I outside, yelling at her? It was like it was in slow motion.”

Caltrain officials say the accident is still under investigation, though Monroe says the Nissan had a green light and the car in front of the Goldblatts had cleared the intersection before the collision.

The baby bullet

I take that same northbound baby-bullet train — number 369 — every Tuesday to visit my mother in Palo Alto. At Charleston, the train hums before it begins the long slowing into the Palo Alto station.

The site of the fatal accident is six blocks from the home where my parents lived for two decades. I know that crossing. I know it’s no place to linger.

Yet I wonder whether a couple from Indiana would understand that innately. It’s hard to predict how we’d react if a train came bearing down on us. Was she confused by the gates going down behind her?

The cruel irony of the crash is that Judith Goldblatt, 65, was the one who organized life for her husband, Lawrence, the emeritus dean of the Indiana University School of Dentistry.

It was a second marriage for both of them, one they celebrated with a 25th anniversary last August. By the account of friends, the two Goldblatts were inseparable: On a yearlong leave, they were visiting Judith’s sister on the Peninsula.

“She was his rock,” said Susan Zunt, a colleague of Lawrence Goldblatt at the dental school. “She would call him during the day, and he always took the calls and never grumbled.”

A conversationalist

Judith, a breast cancer survivor, knew how to put people at ease: She was a superb conversationalist, gifted at remembering people’s names and interests.

The Goldblatts kept a kosher home. And Judith was deeply involved in progressive causes, working with a group called Greater Indianapolis for Change, a grass-roots movement that registered poor voters and backed President Barack Obama’s election in 2008.

When the couple traveled, it was Judith — the meticulous, organized one — who generally drove. “She was always so alert of her surroundings,” a friend, John Lilienkamp, told the Palo Alto Daily News. “We’re all just so shocked.”

Did her car stall? Did she have trouble opening the door or unlatching the seat belt? Did her chronic back problems delay her? Was she confused by the gates going down behind her?

One idea — and I think it’s a good one — is to move the traffic light farther west, across the railroad tracks, to prevent cars on Charleston from stalling on the tracks when trains are coming.

In Palo Alto, we assume everyone knows how to navigate the Caltrain crossings. The truth is we bear some culpability for the crash. Twenty-six seconds. It sounds like a lot. This time, it wasn’t nearly enough.

"I fully support the principles behind Senate Bill 1: to defeat efforts by the president and Congress to undermine vital federal protections that protect clean air, clean water and endangered species," Newsom said in a written statement.